Ramana Maharshi (1879 – 1950)
Hindu sage, and a proponent of Advaita Vedanta.
The macrocosm is in its entirety in the body. The body is in its entirety in the heart. Therefore heart is the summarised form of all the macrocosm.
Under whatever name or form we worship It, It leads us on to knowledge of the nameless, formless Absolute. Yet, to see one's true Self in the Absolute, to subside into It and be one with It, this is the true Knowledge of the Truth.
In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.
It is said that the I-activity is the root of all activities. From where the I-thought emerges, that in short is the heart.
Ishta-devata and Guru are aids - very powerful aids on this path. But an aid to be effective requires your effort also. Your effort is a sine qua non. It is you who should see the sun. Can spectacles and the sun see for you? You yourself have to see your true nature. Not much aid is required for doing it!
Truly there is no cause for you to be miserable and unhappy. You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of infinite Being and then weep that you are but a finite creature. Then you take up this or that sadhana to transcend the nonexistent limitations. But if your sadhana itself assumes the existence of the limitations, how can it help you to transcend them? Hence I say know that you are really the infinite, pure Being, the Self Absolute. You are always that Self and nothing but that Self. Therefore, you can never be really ignorant of the Self; your ignorance is merely a formal ignorance... Know then that true Knowledge does not create a new Being for you; it only removes your "ignorant ignorance." Bliss is not added to your nature; it is merely revealed as your true and natural state, eternal and imperishable. The only way to be rid of your grief is to know and be the Self.
Peace is for the purification of one's mind. Power is for the growth of the community. Having established the community with power, one should then establish supreme peace.
It is said that a good brotherly feeling with a sense of equality is the supreme goal to be reached collectively by all members of the community.
[A member of the community] should conduct himself always by word, mind and body in such a fashion that it results in help to the society. He should also make his own men understand this.
It is said that the heart is in the microcosm just as the orb of the sun in the macrocosm. The mind in Sahasrara is like the disc of the moon.
Why should you trouble yourself about the future? You do not even properly know about the present. Take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.
It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long sanskaras which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone.